Charleston-Detroit flights suspended for two months in January

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- While Delta Airlines is upgrading its Charleston-Atlanta service with 120-passenger DC-9s with first-class sections starting on March 2, it is dropping its Charleston-Detroit service for two months starting in January.

Delta, which currently operates two daily flights from Charleston's Yeager Airport to Detroit's Metro Airport, is suspending service between the two cities starting Jan. 7, but will resume the flights starting March 2.

Yeager Airport director Rick Atkinson said the airline is suspending service between Detroit and several other mid-sized airports during January and February - the two slowest months for air travel.

Delta passengers "can still get wherever they need to go through Atlanta" during the two-month hiatus, Atkinson said during a meeting of the airport's board of directors on Wednesday.

In other developments, board member Priscilla Haden announced that Yeager's long-planned secure-area food service area, Kanawha Café, is scheduled to open sometime during the week of Dec. 17.

In the planning process for two years, the café will provide seating for about 20 passengers, and offer panini sandwiches, salads, beer and wine by the glass, and other food and beverage fare. Operated by the Gino's/Tudor's Biscuit World Franchise in the main passenger lobby, Kanawha Café will be the first food and beverage service available for passengers who have cleared TSA screening and are preparing to board flights.

"Sometimes it's good to wait for quality, and from what I've seen, this is quality work," Haden said of the new café.

For passengers interested in attending the Dec. 29 New Era Pinstripe Bowl game between WVU and Syracuse, Yeager's marketing director, Brian Belcher, said American Eagle's nonstop flights to New York are sold out from Dec. 25-29. Belcher said one-stop flights are still available for WVU fans on USAirways and Delta flights from Yeager, but cautioned that reservations should be made soon.